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Stick to the truth when describing your skillset, don’t join the growing number who make themselves out to be celebrities, Kevin Lewis advises. There are some moments in life where a tendency towards modesty and under-playing your hand is rather endearing. It can make a lot of strategic sense too, because it is a whole…
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Kevin Lewis compares the frustrations of UK rail commuters with NHS dental contract holders. Picture a world-weary commuter – probably (but not necessarily) in the north of England – whose trains are cancelled, rescheduled onto a crisis timetable and then cancelled again. Finally, that rarest of all sightings – a train – makes a welcome…
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Does the NHS require special treatment, Kevin Lewis questions. The long-term dilemma of finding a way to fund the NHS has reared its ugly head yet again. The circle that successive Governments have found impossible to square for 70 years is apparently to become a case for special treatment itself. The notional pledge to secure…
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Kevin Lewis discusses the potential impact of the new GDPR. It may be time to re-write the old saying: ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. As from 25 May, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) descends upon us all, it’s more a case of who you know, what you know about…
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The additional money raised by the sugar tax is just going to go back into Government hands and not help dentistry, says Kevin Lewis. So, after all the huffing and puffing, the sugar tax became a reality earlier this month. Introducing this without any clear and substantive steps being taken in advance of its implementation…
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Kevin Lewis looks at how the GDC sets the annual retention fee. My shameless misquote in the above title requires my apologies to whomever first came up with the original line ‘you pays yer money and you takes yer choice’. Its first recorded use was as a caption to a Punch cartoon in the mid-19th…
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The Department of Health and Social Care has missed an opportunity by repeating exactly the same model in the next wave of prototypes, Kevin Lewis says. There’s no mistaking the irritating sound of a can being kicked down the road, especially after more than a decade of hearing the same can being kicked down the…
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As the Government helped to push Carillion towards collapse, could it be doing the same for NHS dentistry, Kevin Lewis asks. The Carillion story has to some extent gate-crashed the traditional midwinter NHS party. This is the time of year when the NHS’s valiant efforts to claw its way through the most demanding months of…
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Kevin Lewis explains why a royal college is so important for dentistry as FGDP looks to become independent. The year 1992 was a defining year for UK general dental practitioners in many different ways. Those readers who were around may recall that it was in the July of that year that the gross fees paid…
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With the end of the year rapidly approaching, Kevin Lewis looks back at 2017. By my calculation this is the 37th consecutive year that I have written a December column either for this publication, or for another one that I used to write for until 11 years ago. You can’t re-use the same yuletide puns…
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Fraudulent claims by ‘imaginary’ patients aren’t the fault of NHS dentists, Kevin Lewis says. Climate change may be making it difficult to work out what season we are in these days, but there is one sure-fire way to tell that the Christmas holiday period and the depth of winter (however deep that proves to be)…
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Kevin Lewis discusses the coming together of the BDA Conference and The Dentistry Show. There being less than 50 filling days left to Christmas, it’s time to get the party started. What do you get if you cross an elephant with a kangaroo? Very large holes all over Australia. What do you get if you…
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We need to stop selling dentistry and start selling the benefits of dentistry, Kevin Lewis says. Isn’t it strange when somebody says something that sparks a recollection dating back many years and which you discover dusty but intact in your memory bank? Where do we store all this stuff – and why? Somebody was commenting…
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The Department of Health should be a little more bothered about the missing 50% of patients who can’t get access to an NHS dentist, Kevin Lewis says. It was the first week of September and there was the first chill wind of autumn in the air, both when you stepped outside your front door and…
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The arrogance and self-delusion of NHS procurement staff is costing NHS trusts more money, Kevin Lewis argues. August can be a pretty quiet month in healthcare, with a great deal of nothing very much happening. But not this year. In fact it has all been rather fun to observe from the beach, pool, garden, decontamination…
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Kevin Lewis questions why we are continuing with the UDA system when there are other ways to deliver quality dentistry. Not quite midsummer when you come to read this, I accept, but it was when I wrote it. Bear with me. ‘I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the…
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Kevin Lewis examines the impact of recent political and judicial events on NHS dentistry. I write this column in the immediate aftermath of the general election, so it would seem a bit odd if I failed to mention it. A hung parliament and all the ensuing compromises and concessions was about the last thing the…
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The GDC’s intentions are sound, even if they do get lost in business jargon, says Kevin Lewis. Some years ago I was lecturing in Istanbul at the Turkish Dental Association Conference. My command of the English language is streets ahead of my Turkish, so like most of the other international speakers I was speaking in…
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The GDC should be holding dental corporates to account the same way it does for individual practice owners, Kevin Lewis says. Amongst the amendments made in 2005 to The Dentists Act were changes to the arrangements relating to the involvement of limited companies in dentistry. A limited number of dental bodies corporate (DBCs) had been…
